One of the questions we often get is how cubicle shields and divider panels are different and if one is better than the other.

Our initial response is that they’re different and which one you choose should be based on your office’s needs, what you’re trying to accomplish in your workspace and what your budget is.

But, there are more intricacies involved than just those general ideas. Exploring each of those topics – needs, goals and budget – will help you get a sense of whether a cubicle shield or a divider panel is best.

Cubicle Shield vs. Divider Panels: Your Office Space’s Needs

Take a minute to think about how your office is running right now and what each team member needs. Do you run a call center where space is limited and moderate sound reduction is needed? Are your employees handling sensitive information that requires premium noise reduction between cubicles?

We find that many offices are designed with space in mind but, in some cases, visual and auditory privacy is either forgotten or neglected. This is a mistake we often see and it’s easily remedied with cubicle shields or divider panels.

In situations where you need sound privacy and you have desks with existing low walls around them, cubicle shields are a good choice because you can easily attach them to the existing walls to add height around the cubicle and deaden sound.

If your office has more of an open feel and there aren’t walls around each employee’s tables, then a desk-mounted divider panel can provide a huge privacy boost and, as we’ve pointed out before, increased privacy leads to increased productivity.

Cubicle Shield vs. Divider Panels: What Do You Want to Accomplish With Your Workspace?

Many of our clients want to create a workspace with increased productivity and privacy. These topics go hand-in-hand because, as we mentioned in the previous section, studies are clear that privacy is a human need and that workers thrive when they feel like they have a certain level of autonomy.

We also know that traditional workplaces have a desire to modernize and, in this era of office design, open concepts are easily the most popular trend.

A lot of businesses hear the phrase “open floor plan” and automatically think of bean-bag chairs and free-form work areas with standing desks and community tables.

We believe that an open concept can be achieved with cubicle shields and divider panels because both are designed to offer enough auditory and visual privacy without disrupting workplace community.

One of the things that’s most appealing about cubicle shields and divider panels is that they’re affordable and effective.

Prices tend to vary most when you’re deciding between panels that provide visual privacy and ones that provide audio privacy.

Our fabric-covered sound-reducing panels are different than our other shields and dividers because they contain STC- and NRC-rated materials that absorb sound and prevent it from moving from one cubicle to another.

While the performance of our cubicle shields and dividers is among the best, our price points remain reasonable, making both options a good choice for your office.

Wrapping It Up: An Overview of Cubicle Shields and Divider Panels

Your office’s cubicles are an important part of how productive your team will be. The thought you put into your shields and dividers will either mesh or clash with your employees’ needs and your own vision for how you want your workplace to function.

Head to our Contact Us page to send us an email or give us a call. We’re happy to talk with you about what you want out of your office and how our products can provide a simple, cost-effective solution.

Take a minute to imagine the ideal office, the one you’d love to work in but just can’t.

What comes to mind? Google? Facebook? Any number of California-based tech giants and startups? And, most likely, those offices that you thought of are huge, open spaces where collaboration seems to be the prevailing theory of workspace design. Couches. Bean bags. Standing desks. Big tables.

The open-office theory of workplace interaction now has a pretty solid grip on the work world and is the undisputed spearhead of modern work innovation. However, people have started to question how effective an open office really is.

If those arguments could be summed up with one question, it would be: Are open offices really as collaborative and idea friendly as we think.

And, believe it or not, more and more experts are saying, “no.”

High-Achievers Don’t Function Well in an Open-Office, Collaborative Atmosphere

One of the things that’s rarely talked about in open-office discussions is the negative effect of the “all-ideas-are-welcome” philosophy.

You see, when high achievers are forced to work in an environment where their excellence is watered down by communal mediocrity, they leave. At least that’s the opinion of a recent Inc. article about why collaborative environments cramp superstars’ personalities.

“The problem is that rather than seeing a top performer as a role model,” contributing editor Geoffrey James wrote, “mediocre employees tend to see them as threats, either to their own position in the company or to their own feelings of self-worth.”

At the same time, these high achievers see collaborative environments as a burden they must carry. Burdens slow people down, and a slow pace, at least to high achievers, is seen as an acceptance of mediocrity.

“The No. 1 reason high performers leave organizations in which they are otherwise happy is because of the tolerance of mediocrity,” Inc.’s Les McKeown wrote in an article picked up by TIME Magazine. “When You’re a Ferrari (or think you are), you don’t want to spend your time idling at the curb.”

Privacy Actually Promotes Mental Acuity

A big emphasis of the open-office movement is that Millennials don’t want to take well to overbearing leaders and value community. Consequently, an open-office environment puts everyone on the same plane since managers and employees are working side by side.

However, research indicates that the mind is wired for privacy. In other words, your brain needs to feel a certain level of autonomy and privacy to focus enough to excel.

The evidence for this is a 1980 study published in The Academy of Management Journal, which noted that employees were more satisfied with their job when the office’s architecture allowed them privacy.

While the study is three decades old, it remains relevant if only because other studies were done in the past few years that have confirmed it.

In fact, a New Yorker article that summarized the research in this area resolutely concluded that open offices were not nearly as beneficial as most of us believe they are.

“Psychologically, the repercussions of open offices are relatively straightforward. Physical barriers have been closely linked to psychological privacy, and a sense of privacy boosts job performance. Open offices also remove an element of control, which can lead to feelings of helplessness.”

Another landmark study came from research firm Steelcase, who revealed that all was not well in the world of open-office workplaces even though the concept has its advantages.

“Throughout the world, too much interaction and not enough privacy has reached crisis proportions, taking a heavy toll on workers’ creativity, productivity, engagement and wellbeing,” Steelcase concluded. “Without question, successful collaboration requires giving coworkers easy access to each other. But it also requires giving each individual the time and places to focus and recharge, and too many workplaces today aren’t delivering on privacy as a necessity.”

Transitioning Out of an Open Office Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult

If you’ve been considering transitioning away from a full-fledged open office to something a little more private, contact us.

We’ll help you determine what you need to do to make your changes with the least amount of impact on your employees’ performance.

What an executive’s desk should look like is all a matter of where you work and who you work with.

If you’re a Fortune 500 accounting firm and you’ve got a C-level job, then there’s a good chance you’re going to go with something big, powerful and measured. A modern, dark wood behemoth with brushed nickel accents is a legitimate possibility.

However, if you’re a C-leveler at an emerging tech company, you’ll probably shy away from the bruising desk and cherry-wood swivel chair and push for a minimalist desk and a Herman Miller Aeron. The goal is function over form, pragmatism over elitism.

The overriding principle here is that your executive desk says something about your style of leadership and your personality as well as the personality of the company.

“As the boss, your office isn’t just an extension of you; it’s an extension of your company. A message is sent and received the moment someone walks in,” Shari Alexander wrote in a 2014 article for Entrepreneur.

Therefore, choosing what goes in your office is an important decision with several crucial implications.

Executive Furniture Can Be a Weapon…

For the longest time, the executive desk had one purpose: to express, in wooden form, the extent of your power. The bigger the desk, the higher the pay and the greater the influence.

Within that context of power expression, there’s also the nuanced use of the executive desk to gain the upper hand during interactions with an employee or a client.

In other words, the executive desk can be your way of making somebody feel small simply by how far away they sit from you and how high their chair is.

Not lost on this discussion is the old caricature of a subordinate sitting in an almost comically-low chair, peering over the edge of a massive wooden desk in hopes that their boss will spare them excessive punishment.

Alexander said it well when she described some executive offices as an interrogation room.

“This simple set-up creates a subtle psychological dynamic between interrogator and suspect. The suspect is stuck in one place while the interrogator can freely move around the room. Similar to a throne, the interrogator sits higher than the suspect,” Alexander wrote.

…Or It Can Be a Welcoming Environment

On the other hand, an executive desk and the peripheral furniture can help build connections between the executive and employees, clients and colleagues.

If you feel like you’ve accidentally turned your office into an interrogation room, you’re not a lost cause. There are simple things you can do to improve the feel of your office.

Alexander points out that adding a round table and a few chairs can, as a place where you can carry on a more intimate conversation, enhance the communal feel of your office without sacrificing your positional authority.

“Use those sections of your space for more personable or difficult conversations,” Alexander wrote.

Be Mindful of How Much You Emphasize Your Accolades

In the vein of old-school thinking about executive offices, many C-level bosses adorn a cabinet or a wall with their accomplishments, achievements and recognitions. This type of environment can make a visitor feel intimidated or insignificant and really isn’t necessary.

Choosing Your Furniture Wisely

Put some time into thinking about your furniture in more comprehensive terms than just, “What looks most powerful and reflects my position most accurately?”

The best office furniture providers in San Diego should provide you with a multitude of executive furniture choices that provide a middle ground between a welcoming environment and one that still gives a nod to your status as executive management.

“Don’t choose furniture just because you like its color or design. You have to choose one that goes with your brand or your office personality,” Founder’s Guide wrote. “Your office furniture must transcend the aesthetic and comfort value it provides; it must also reflect your company’s identity and culture.”

One of the questions we often get is how cubicle shields and divider panels are different and if one is better than the other.

Our initial response is that they’re different and which one you choose should be based on your office’s needs, what you’re trying to accomplish in your workspace and what your budget is.

But, there are more intricacies involved than just those general ideas. Exploring each of those topics – needs, goals and budget – will help you get a sense of whether a cubicle shield or a divider panel is best.

Cubicle Shield vs. Divider Panels: Your Office Space’s Needs

Take a minute to think about how your office is running right now and what each team member needs. Do you run a call center where space is limited and moderate sound reduction is needed? Are your employees handling sensitive information that requires premium noise reduction between cubicles?

We find that many offices are designed with space in mind but, in some cases, visual and auditory privacy is either forgotten or neglected. This is a mistake we often see and it’s easily remedied with cubicle shields or divider panels.

In situations where you need sound privacy and you have desks with existing low walls around them, cubicle shields are a good choice because you can easily attach them to the existing walls to add height around the cubicle and deaden sound.

If your office has more of an open feel and there aren’t walls around each employee’s tables, then a desk-mounted divider panel can provide a huge privacy boost and, as we’ve pointed out before, increased privacy leads to increased productivity.

Cubicle Shield vs. Divider Panels: What Do You Want to Accomplish With Your Workspace?

Many of our clients want to create a workspace with increased productivity and privacy. These topics go hand-in-hand because, as we mentioned in the previous section, studies are clear that privacy is a human need and that workers thrive when they feel like they have a certain level of autonomy.

We also know that traditional workplaces have a desire to modernize and, in this era of office design, open concepts are easily the most popular trend.

A lot of businesses hear the phrase “open floor plan” and automatically think of bean-bag chairs and free-form work areas with standing desks and community tables.

We believe that an open concept can be achieved with cubicle shields and divider panels because both are designed to offer enough auditory and visual privacy without disrupting workplace community.

One of the things that’s most appealing about cubicle shields and divider panels is that they’re affordable and effective.

Prices tend to vary most when you’re deciding between panels that provide visual privacy and ones that provide audio privacy.

Our fabric-covered sound-reducing panels are different than our other shields and dividers because they contain STC- and NRC-rated materials that absorb sound and prevent it from moving from one cubicle to another.

While the performance of our cubicle shields and dividers is among the best, our price points remain reasonable, making both options a good choice for your office.

Wrapping It Up: An Overview of Cubicle Shields and Divider Panels

Your office’s cubicles are an important part of how productive your team will be. The thought you put into your shields and dividers will either mesh or clash with your employees’ needs and your own vision for how you want your workplace to function.

Head to our Contact Us page to send us an email or give us a call. We’re happy to talk with you about what you want out of your office and how our products can provide a simple, cost-effective solution.

Much of the talk about social media and job searches is focused on what not to do.

In our previous post , we talked about the role of social media in the hiring process. Bosses and HR departments will often check a candidate’s social media feeds to judge more than your minor indiscretions. It’s important to remember your grammar, industry knowledge and use of profanity are on display, too.

What we didn’t touch on much in the first article is that you can actually use social media to your advantage.

We did some research on several reputable sites to find solid advice on how you can use your social media accounts as part of your overall body of work as you apply for new positions.

View Your Social Media as a Brand

When you become serious enough about your job search that you’re concerned about what your social media accounts say about you, it’s time to view your accounts as the primary representation of your brand.

By “brand”, we mean an intentional and uniform expression of what you want potential employers to know about you.

Forbes contributor Jerry McLaughlin did well to conjure up the old definition of “brand”: a hot iron used to mark cattle back in the Old West.

Painful? Yes, but his point was that a rancher’s brand was specific to him or her and identified every cow under his or her purvey.

Your social media accounts should bear your brand – a unique identifier true to who you are and what you do.

One of the tips we liked the most was: “Don’t have an account on everything.”

“It’s much better to have a well-crafted, up-to-date account on one or two platforms than to have a bunch of accounts that haven’t been touched in years,” Greenawald wrote. “Every job seeker should have a LinkedIn account, and a Facebook or Twitter to show that you’re a real person doesn’t hurt. Beyond that, consider what’s really important for your industry.”

In our opinion, LinkedIn and Facebook are the most crucial accounts. LinkedIn connects you with professionals and provides a way for employers to view your work history and other experience without having to ask for a resume or contact you.

Don’t run away just yet – the word “optimize” isn’t as an intimidating as it sounds.

To optimize your LinkedIn account means you want to make sure it’s up-to-date and contains the right words that will help your profile show up when recruiters or potential employers search for candidates.

“As a job seeker on LinkedIn, the best thing that can happen is that a recruiter or hiring manager finds youand reaches out,” Greenawald said. “So, you should be doing everything you can to attract them to your profile!“

Part of this mission to be found by employers is to include a great heading and specific keywords in your profile, she wrote.

“Keywords” describe certain words that employers look for or want in the profiles for which they’re searching. Including the specific names of software or apps you know well helps, as do the names of companies and certifications specific to your experience.

Follow Other Accounts on LinkedIn

In addition to infusing keywords, Lily Zhang, another Muse writer, pointed out that adding as many people as you can may also give you an advantage in employers’ searches. This advice, she said, is something Inc.’s Larry Kim posited in a previous article.

“While this isn’t something that will work for everyone (for example, I try to only stick with contacts I’ve had at least one meaningful conversation with because I use LinkedIn more as a way to keep track of professional acquaintances than a job search tool), it may make sense for you to be a bit more liberal in adding contacts in order to raise your profile in search results,” Zhang wrote.

Closing Thoughts: Your Social Media Accounts Are Your Second Resume

Your resume tells your employer where you’ve worked and how well-equipped you are to handle the position they’re looking to fill.

Your social media accounts act as a second source of information for your employers. Everything you post is subject to the same amount of scrutiny your resume receives.

Make sure you’re wise about what you post, how you post it and which accounts you decide to open. A good start is to maintain a Facebook account (which you’re probably already doing) and a LinkedIn account that is free of grammatical errors, has a good headline and includes up-to-date information about your previous employment and your skills and/or certifications.

There was a time when searching for a job meant responding to ads in the newspaper.

There was no LinkedIn, no Twitter and no Facebook. Much of what an employer knew about you was either through your references, your past employers or your body of work. Occasionally, a story or two about you may have been passed along by a mutual acquaintance.

For the most part, you could keep your private and public life separate. What you did at home and at restaurants and bars didn’t show up in someone’s Instagram or Facebook feed.

The times have changed. Today, one poorly chosen selfie could take you out of the running for your dream job.

While you can adjust privacy settings to limit those who can see the online artifacts of your daily life, you can never be completely certain who is viewing your photos, political ramblings or random thoughts.

In fact, JobVite said in their 2014 study of social media’s role in job searches that 94% of recruiters plan to use or already use social media as part of their recruitment process.

That doesn’t mean they’re scouring feeds for information all the time, but they’re certainly profiling candidates as well as posting jobs on LinkedIn, Indeed and Facebook.

According to Forbes contributor Jacquelyn Smith, 37% of respondents in a CareerBuilder.com survey say they do specifically use social media to screen candidates.

We did a little research and found a series of tips that can help you protect yourself from embarrassing (and possibly job jeopardizing) social media situations.

Realize This: Your Employer Is Looking for More Than a Drunk Selfie

Okay, so we all know that a potential boss scanning our Facebook feed might put you in an awkward situation if you snapped an embarrassing photo of yourself at last week’s happy hour.

Unfortunately, that’s not all potential employers are looking for, says Job-Hunt.org. Your employers could be scanning your feeds for any of the following reasons:

How well you communicate (your spelling, punctuation, and grammar as well as your ability to clearly communicate ideas)

Your work history and education

Your industry knowledge

Your use of alcohol

Your use of illegal substances

Your use of profanity

The solution here is simple. If you know you’re going to start job hunting, keep your Facebook and Instagram posts clean and delete any compromising photos or statements.

We’re certainly not forcing you to alter your sense of expression. Rather, the experts say the basic rules of common sense apply. You don’t want to lose your job over a few words or one photo.

Don’t Just Clean Up Your Social Media; Use It to Your Advantage

This suggestion may come off as a bit inauthentic, but consider it a temporary way to boost your candidacy.

The Forbes article we mentioned also revealed that, according to Career Builder, 29% of hiring managers “found something positive on a profile that drove them to offer the candidate a job.”

Are you launching a job search? Start posting articles or comments about topics related to the field in which you are applying.

You see, today’s job interview is a lot more complex than it used to be. Not only do you have to perform well face-to-face, but you have to present yourself as a worthy candidate before you ever step into the HR department.

Yes, your resume plays a big role in this, but don’t allow your CV to be the only expression of what makes you great.

If you’re looking for work in PR, follow popular PR pages on Facebook and repost their material. Leave thoughtful, well-measured comments. Create and engage in dialogue with PR professionals.

It will pay off – remember, one out of four hiring managers said something they saw on a candidate’s social media feed compelled them to hire the individual.

Come Back Next Month for More Tips

Next month we’ll be continuing our exploration of social media’s role in your job search, so make sure you stop by for more insights we gathered from U.S. News & World Report,The Muse and more.

Mastering your ability to deliver a presentation or speech is an essential part of your future success as an employee or entrepreneur.

It allows you to promote yourself, make new contacts and provides an excellent platform for sharing your ideas and vision with a broader audience, in conference rooms and event halls alike.

Contending with speech fear and anxiety isn’t easy, but it can be done. Tweaking your preparation habits and the way you convey your message, along with an awareness of your audience’s perceptions and expectations, can help you hone the skills of a successful, persuasive and world-class communicator.

The psychology behind public speaking manifests itself in subtle ways. Mastering the minutia of what’s happening in the minds of the audience as well as the speaker is essential in effectively sharing your message.

These next few tips will help you captivate and keep the seemingly ever-elusive attention of an audience.

Adjust Your Gestures

In an article for Entrepreneur, contributor Neil Petch noted a famous study as evidence to the power of nonverbal communication.

“Dr. Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, famously conducted research in the early 1970s which found that just 93% of any message is conveyed through non-verbal communication,” Petch wrote.

Gestures and gesticulations provide a direct connection to the brain, allowing extra access to memories and ideas, without which it would be considerably difficult for humans to communicate and share with each other.

“A previous 2012 study … found that gestures make people pay attention to the acoustics of speech,” explains Christopher Bergland, author and contributing writer for Psychology Today. “When you see a hand gesture, your auditory system expects to also hear speech.”

Control your body movements and you have added a layer of control over the audience’s attention.

“The latest neuroscience research has revealed that human beings process words and pictures in different physical areas of the brain. If your presentation includes pictures alongside text, people are twice as likely to remember your message,” James wrote.

It may take some extra preparation time, but creating an interactive dynamic with an audience will promote far more attentiveness and genuine engagement.

Attract Attention Through Tone, Connections and Practice

Another Entrepreneur guest writer, Jonathan Li, pointed out that you’ll have to fight hard for your audience’s attention.

“The scarcest commodity in the business world is attention. If you’re a boring speaker, the audience will check their emails or think about where to have dinner tonight,” Li wrote in 2015.

Don’t forget to break interrupt the monotony. Our brains aren’t naturally configured to tune into the drone and lulls of a lackluster speech.

However, with a few adjustments, you will improve your delivery and confidence.

By setting the right tone of voice, interrupting the audience’s day-dreaming by asking direct questions, and creating emotional connections through personal anecdotes, you are sure to captivate them both with your expertise and your personal, vested interest.

It is also important to mention the role of practice and repetition in confidence and connection with an audience.

Knowing your material is an extremely necessary component in giving your listeners a reason to feel included. You’ll also connect with them on a deeper, more meaningful level.

Having a solid grasp on a pithy, focused speech also frees up extra processing space in your brain so you can spend more energy building a genuine, off-the-cuff rapport and less on giving a tired, uncertain lecture.

Don’t Fear It: Embrace It

Embracing the fear of public speaking will go a long way in maintaining a lasting, successful career. World-class communications skills are attainable, not through nervous pacing or breathing into a paper bag, but with an appreciation for communicating your entrepreneurial view.

No matter how you dress it up, however, there is no excuse for failing to make use of the incredible spectrum of communication and persuasion tools at your disposal.

Break up the rhythm of your speech to aid in the retention of information and get the audience active with methods that nudge them to utilize several parts of the brain at once.

Applying these principles will help you overcome your fear of speaking and will create presentations and pitches that engage the audience and, ultimately, lead to your success.

Inspiring the hearts and minds of those around you with an on-point presentation or pitch is easily one of the most daunting tasks facing today’s otherwise intrepid entrepreneurs.

Be it a convincing filibuster at a meeting you weren’t prepared for, presenting for the promotion of a lifetime, or giving a TED talk in front of some of the most influential people, it all requires finely honed speaking and presenting skills.

Fear is the major opposition to giving eloquent speeches, and, for many of us, public speaking doesn’t come naturally.

The following musings from seasoned speakers will allow you to not only identify some of the common ailments afflicting business professionals from all walks and disciplines, but will help develop your personal style and stage presence to command even the most intimidating group of entrepreneurs and business leaders without all the stuttering and pacing.

Listen and Learn

“It’s true that the mind can’t focus on two things at once,” declares Beverly D. Flaxington in a 2015 Psychology Today article. “Statistically speaking, 3 out of every 4 people fear public speaking (and) dealing with the effects of speech anxiety is so prevalent that there is a formal term for it – glossophobia.”

What does this mean for you, the speaker? Glossophobia comes in many shapes and sizes, but you don’t have to resign yourself to a fate worse than death.

After their foray into the terrifying world of TED Talks, Wharton and Harvard psychologists Amy Cuddy and Adam Grant shared their insights with Business Insider’s Shane Lebowitz.

Both suggested paying attention to the audience and other presentations as an effective way to take the focus off your own anxieties. Grant recalled how being engrossed in a friend’s speech relieved made him forget about being nervous.

“We’d been practicing together for months beforehand, and he delivered the best version of his talk. And I was so engrossed in flow that I forgot that I was speaking next, and I heard my name and said, ‘Ahh, gotta get on stage!’”

His assertions are supported by Cuddy’s research on studies correlating self-focus and high anxiety.

It may sound counterintuitive, but tuning into other people and presentations distracts from your own anxieties, and can teach and inspire you.

Absorb others’ confidence and mannerisms when they’re speaking and you’ll be able to demystify the task. You might find yourself invigorated and eagerly awaiting the spotlight, rather than pacing and fidgeting in your office or backstage in a palpable cloud of self-doubt and worry.

No Need for Speed

Most of us have experienced it: the speeding pulse, the racing thoughts, the debilitating anxiety that compels flight rather than fight when it comes to public speaking. You have only to describe the symptoms to recognize the clear and present danger to your effectiveness as a speaker.

Adrenaline is by far public speaking’s enemy number one. Nerves must be expelled one way or another, and the forum for most public speaking venues doesn’t always lend itself to venting those anxieties on an audience.

“That energy has to go somewhere,” posits Forbes contributor Nick Moran in “Why We Fear Public Speaking and How to Overcome It.” Some speakers get ‘happy feet’ – they wander endlessly all over the stage. Some people lose affect. They become rigid, with few facial gestures, and appear virtually devoid of emotion. Others speed up, filling every available nanosecond with rapid-fire talk.”

Being mindful of our nervous ticks is essential to taking center stage in the business world. The importance of developing good physical habits before a presentation mustn’t be underestimated.

Deep belly breathing, exercise and meditation center you and keep the residual backstage adrenaline rush at bay so you can focus on sharing the message you painstakingly prepared.

Be a Little Full of Yourself

You’ve heard that confidence is key, but it can be tough to find the door to successful public speaking in business when you’re too busy navigating the various twists and turns of public speaking anxiety.

The audience feeds on your confidence just as they sense uncertainty in a stage actor delivering lines without conviction or emotion. You can mitigate this effect by deciding beforehand who you want to be perceived as the moment you walk out to perform.

Faking it until you make it is a tried and true adage for a reason. Just as an actor prepares their new identity before the cameras record, so too can you apply the same principle in your public speaking. The results will astound you.

What’s Ahead: Common Pitfalls

Once you’ve mastered the mental muzzle keeping your entrepreneurial voice at bay, you’ll be ready to focus on the minds of your audience. The work doesn’t end in the mind of the speaker.

We must also be cognizant of the perceptions and expectations of the audience. In part two of the Psychology of Public Speaking series, we’ll explore the common pitfalls that you might find when you’re trying to rein in not only your anxiety, but the anxiety of an expectant crowd.

That’s the battle cry of information- and narrative-hungry entrepreneurs who are constantly looking for the newest material and insights to strengthen their business acumen.

Of course, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur to love a good business podcast. There are plenty of resources available in the podosphere to help you be more productive at work and more whole at home.

We’ve created a list of five podcasts to download this year and we’ve tried to avoid the old guard like Tim Ferriss and EoF. Enjoy!

Business Podcast#1: StartUp

We like this show from Gimlet Media because it has that trademark Gimlet style. Business advice is wrapped in intimate narratives about how Gimlet CEO Alex Blumberg started his company.

“It tackles all the issues of starting a company, like naming it, valuing it and bringing on partners through a personal, narrative lens,” Entrepreneur contributor Matt Mayberry wrote.

StartUp made Bite Size PR’s list of “30 Business Podcasts to Listen to Now.” They describe the show as a mix between PBS standouts This American Life and Serial. “Startup paints a compelling portrait of what it’s really like to get a business off the ground.”

Business Podcast #2: Powderkeg: Igniting Startups

Another newcomer to the biz podcast world, Powderkeg is a startup show that focuses on a unique area of the tech world: entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley.

Here’s how Entrepreneur describes the show: “Energetic host Matt Hunckler taps into the minds of top-tier entrepreneurs, investors and innovators to provide insights that will help aspiring founders no matter where they’re located.

Here’s a quick sampling of the show’s most recent episodes, which are released every Tuesday:

How to Clear Your Mind, Calm Your Nerves, and Pivot Like a Pro

Leading Remote Teams and Podcasting for Business Growth

How Startup Grind Bootstrapped from Zero to One Million

Growing Startups and Investing Outside of Silicon Valley

Some of the personalities on the show are Jenny Blake, Derek Andreson, Paul Singh and Jay Baer.

This show is the brainchild of Brian Clark, a serial entrepreneur with a colorful resume that includes tenures as a lawyer and a writer. His podcast is popular with entrepreneurs and freelancers.

Clark’s show focuses on seven different aspects of being self-employed and/or starting businesses:

Mindset

Marketing

Development

Operations

Support

Finance

Legal

Each category plays an important role in your journey, and Clark covers them like the expert that he is.

Business Podcast #5: Breaking Into Startups

The final podcast on this list features stories of entrepreneurs who found success in the tech universe via non-traditional backgrounds.

“The goal is to encourage and inspire people who want to get into tech by teaching them how to leverage their unique experiences in other industries,” Entrepreneur’s Mayberry wrote.

The show received some press from Tech Crunch in February when it interviewed Idalin Bobe, an IT consultant who grew up in one of the nation’s poorest zip codes.

Keep Growing, Keep Learning

Treading water doesn’t get you anywhere.

These podcasts will help you expand your perception of success, encourage you to break boundaries and push forward, and, above all else, inspire you to fulfill the drive within you.

Don’t fall into the trap of being over-enthusiastic with your listening, though. Start slow – one or two podcasts a week. Take notes and allot time to reflect on what was said. Use a few minutes each morning to explore how you can apply what you learned to your daily routine.

More than a big deal, the concept of privacy is a cultural phenomenon in the United States. Apple’s battle with the FBI in the early part of 2016 launched the privacy discussion into the national spotlight like never before.

What became clear is that, for most of us, our phones are our life and we don’t want anyone sneaking into our digital lives.

But the concept of privacy extends beyond who’s allowed to hack into our phones. We like our personal space, we don’t want to be crowded out in bed and we don’t want to be brushed up on at the dinner table.

When it comes to work, we don’t want nosy coworkers peeking over our cubicle wall with inquisitive and annoying stares as we are trying and close a sale.

Where did our obsession with privacy come from? That’s a question that has many implications, not the least of which includes understanding why and how privacy effects the way we work.

First, the Definition: What is Privacy?

To get a solid definition of what privacy is, or at least what it means, we turned to a 2013 article from The Atlantic.

Reporter Jathan Sadowski interviewed Georgetown University law professor Julie E. Cohen who had written a soon-to-be-published article about privacy for the Harvard Law Review.

Sadowski said Cohen railed against the notion that privacy was “just an instrument used to advance some other principle or value.”

Cohen then went on to say, “Privacy is shorthand for breathing room to engage in the process of … self-development.”

That’s an interesting definition when taken in the context of the workplace. Our jobs are, in a way, part of our self-development.

We put up privacy screens and other panel extenders because we want space to be ourselves and do our thing.

Respecting Privacy Means Respecting the Individual

Security expert Daniel Solove provided the next step in the privacy argument when he published a LinkedIn piece in 2014 titled, “10 Reasons Why Privacy Matters.” In his list, Solove noted that privacy helps maintain appropriate social boundaries. It’s an interesting point, especially as it pertains to the workplace.

“People establish boundaries from others in society. These boundaries are both physical and informational,” he wrote. “We need places of solitude to retreat to, places where we are free of the gaze of others in order to relax and feel at ease.”

You don’t always get a place to retreat in your office, but having a private cubicle with sound-deadening panel extenders gives you a sense of ease and solitude, a sense that you aren’t under the constant gaze of your co-workers or bosses.

This anonymity is crucial to performance, as employees who feel like they’re constantly being watched are more likely to make mistakes and avoid creativity. They play by the rules and avoid standing out.

Give Your Employees Privacy and They’ll Thrive

As we just mentioned, providing individuals (employees included) their own space – even if their privacy is extended by 12 inches – can lead to a healthier, more creative state of mind.

In a 2014 article from The New York Times, reporter Kate Murphy talked about privacy’s role in workplace creativity.

“It’s not surprising that privacy research in both online and offline environments has shown that just the perception, let alone the reality, of being watched results in feelings of low self-esteem, depression and anxiety,” Murphy wrote. “Whether observed by a supervisor at work or Facebook friends, people are inclined to conform and demonstrate less individuality and creativity.”

She went on to say that psychological literature likens privacy to sleep; we need moments of not being watched just like we need moments of slumber.

“The arousal associated with being observed and the implicit judgment drain cognitive resources,” she wrote. “We worry about how we are perceived, which inhibits our ability to explore our thoughts and feelings so we can develop as individuals.”

Protecting Your Employees Privacy with a Simple Solution

In business terms, adding privacy to an office’s cubicle systems equates to a massive logistical headache. Desks have to be broken down, computers have to be removed, network cables have to be rerouted and employees are displaced.

Our panel extenders skip all the hassle and can be installed in a matter of hours. We can even do installations while employees are working.

Contact us and we’ll be happy to talk to you about solutions for your workplace.